South Korean auteur Bong Joon-ho once described the works of Italian film director, editor, and screenwriter Alice Rohrwacher as “a mix of magic realism and neorealism, innocent characters butting up against corrupt behemoths.” And that’s a beautiful and apt description of her work and arguably her latest film, “La Chimera.” A period romantic drama, the film centers on A group of archaeologists and the black market of historical artifacts that ties them all together.
READ MORE: ‘La Chimera’ Review: Another Enchanting Modern Myth From Alice Rohrwacher [Cannes]
The film stars Josh O’Connor, Carol Duarte, Alba Rohrwacher, and Isabella Rossellini. The drama had its world premiere at the 76th Cannes Film Festival last year, and it also screened at the 61st New York Film Festival and the 28th Busan International Film Festival.
Our review from Cannes wrote, “Once again, Alice Rohrwacher proves she is a master at tapping into and expanding the most uncorrupted part within us, our inner Italias. ‘La Chimera’ has such beguiling, reorienting power that it inverts our initial reactions to the tombaroli’s work — so that, by the end of the film, we recoil from the defiling of a statue so viscerally that it’s as if it were made of flesh, not stone.”
Everyone has their own Chimera, something they try to achieve but never manage to find. For the band of tombaroli, thieves of ancient grave goods and archaeological wonders, the Chimera means redemption from work and the dream of easy wealth. For Arthur, the Chimera looks like the woman he lost, Beniamina. To find her, Arthur challenges the invisible, searches everywhere, goand es inside the earth – in search of the door to the afterlife of which myths speak. In an adventurous journey between the living and the dead, between forests and cities, between celebrations and solitudes, the intertwined destinies of these characters unfold, all in search of the Chimera.
Neon is releasing the picture on March 29 in theaters. Watch the new trailer below.